I am a native of Boulder, Colorado and received my undergraduate in physics from MIT in 2008 and my PhD in 2014 working on the Micro-X rocket payload. As an undergraduate I competed on the varsity gymnastics team at MIT and coached the team for several years afterwards, particularly during its transition to club.  My other interests include baking, playing violin, and playing with my two children.

I work primarily on instrumentation. I am a member of the X-ray polarimetry lab working with Herman Marshall developing novel techniques utilizing Bragg reflectors (laterally graded multilayer mirrors and more recently twisted crystals) for soft X-ray polarimetry.  We have proposed and are currently developing a sounding rocket payload called REDSoX using these techniques.  I also spend half my time working on a cryogenic neutrino scattering experiment called Ricochet with Joseph Formaggio in the Laboratory for Nuclear Science.  My main science interests are supernovae and charge exchange, but my heart really lies in building the hardware to do science.

Please note: Micro-X and Figueroa Group now at Northwestern University, Department of Physics & Astronomy